Born in England in 1621, Rebecca Towne immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony sometime before her twentieth birthday. Shortly thereafter, she married fellow immigrant and artisan, Francis Nurse.
Rebecca and Francis became esteemed members within the Salem community. Together, they raised eight children, all of whom were active members of the Salem Towne Church.
Although Francis continued to work as an artisan, he also served as the town constable. The patriarch of the Nurse family was believed to be a fair and honest man, so locals summoned him to mediate disputes, investigate wrongdoings, and keep the peace within their growing community.
In 1678, Francis and Rebecca leased a 300-acre farmhouse in Salem Village. The Nurse family plowed, tilled, and worked the land, and in doing so, made vast improvements to the property.
Despite the hardships of rural life in 17th century America, the Nurses lived well and happily. Even when Rebecca entered old age, lost her hearing, and became bedridden, members of the community spoke of her as a God-fearing, pious woman—a high compliment in a Puritan society. So when the grandmother was arrested for witchcraft in March of 1692, people in the community were shocked, but insisted that she was innocent.
After all, how does a highly respected woman like Rebecca Nurse become the town villain—one accused of witchcraft, hauntings, and making deals with the devil? Especially since, like so many other people who were accused of evil deeds during the witch hunts, nobody saw Rebecca do anything.
The answer is heartbreakingly simple:
The initial accusation, as well as the ones that followed, were fabricated out of revenge—a way for another family, the Putnams, to retaliate over a property dispute.
There is little information about the details of the Putnam-Nurse conflict, and the stories that exist are rather messy and contradictory at times. But what we do know is that the Putnam farm shared a border with the Nurse property, and after the courts ruled against Putnam, accusations aimed at Rebecca Nurse followed.
Not surprisingly, all of Rebecca’s accusers were either members of the Putnam family or their friends. Since Rebecca was essentially bedridden at this point, the Putnams claimed that her spirit would appear at their home, torment them, and prick their bodies with needles. Despite the claims, Rebecca maintained her innocence, declaring that she didn’t know what sin she’d committed to attract such controversy in her old age, but she did know that God would take care of her.
And in June of 1692, three months after her arrest, the jury found Rebecca Nurse not guilty.
But her triumph was short-lived. After an uproar from the Putnam family and the ‘afflicted’ girls, who began wailing and crying in the courtroom, the verdict was reversed. The accusers managed to sway the jury by claiming that earlier in the trial, Rebecca asked a question that exposed her as a witch.
Allegedly, Rebecca asked if another woman (who was also on trial for witchcraft) was “one of us,” which the accusers believed to be an admission of guilt. They argued that “one of us” was a reference to Rebecca being a witch, when it’s more likely that she was asking if the woman was a fellow prisoner.
Despite the original verdict of not guilty, letters written by community members on behalf of Rebecca asserting her innocence, and the fact that nobody witnessed Rebecca harming or harassing anyone, 71-year-old Rebecca Nurse was sentenced to death by hanging for witchcraft.
On July 19th, 1692, she was hung at Proctor’s Ledge alongside fellow accused women, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, and Susannah Martin.
She was fully exonerated less than twenty years later.
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If you want to learn more about Rebecca Nurse, you can visit her homestead, now a museum, in Danvers, Massachusetts.
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